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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]A good compromise is the research universities that run a LAC like college. The trade off is all the ones I can think of are basically lottery schools - Harvard, Yale, Princeton, UChicago, Dartmouth, Brown, Columbia, etc. [/quote]

Harvard absolutely does not run like a college. It is a research university, full stop, with very little concern for undergrads.

http://harvardpolitics.com/harvard/harvard-undergraduates-teaching-harvard-doesnt-want-talk/

[/quote]

Swarthmore has undergraduate teaching assistants as well.  The first time I heard of the practice was from a science professor touting the ability to be a TA as an undergraduate as one of the advantages of attending a SLAC.[/quote]

Your comment is misleading. As a Swattie, I never had a TA, and neither did the vast majority of my classmates. There are tutors, research associates, and writing associates, but very, very, very few TAs. Maybe for a large (by which I mean 125 students) intro science class, but you aren't going to have TAs in the sense of research universities.[/quote]

I was responding to the article PP cited which was specifically about Harvard using undergrads *AS* TAs -- a practice I think it borrowed from SLACs.  It seemed bizarre to me that this was cited as an example of Harvard having very little concern for undergrads when I'd previously heard the same practice cited as an example of the high regard in which SLACs hold their undergrads.  In both cases, it sounds like undergrads aren't doing much teaching.

Separate question:  What do you see as the key differences between the tutors, research associates, and writing associates you encountered at Swarthmore and the grad student section leaders, preceptors, etc at research universities?  Did the non-professors who were involved in teaching at Swartmore all have PhDs?  Or was their use limited to certain Intro courses?  Was all grading done by Profs?  [/quote]

The tutors, research and writing associates were all fellow undergraduates that received additional training to help other students with writing, research, etc. You went to them *voluntarily* if you wanted a fresh set of eyes to look over your work. Of course, you could also always get your prof to look over drafts, but that assumed that you wrote your draft well in advance, whereas the WAs could look at your papers the night before they were due. In foreign language classes, you sometimes had instructors (PhD students from nearby universities) for drill sections, but not for the actual class. All grading was done by professors. At a SLAC you really don't have the graduate student population for TAs. Virtually all the teaching was done by the professor of record. BTW, as a PhD student at a research university, I was the primary instructor for undergraduates and developed my own syllabi. When I would TA, I was responsible for grading undergraduate work, which was signed off by the professor of record.[/quote]

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